NSF Awards $2 Million for UCLA Applied Math Research Training Program

Submitted by anna on Wed, 2010-09-01 10:03

The department's "California Research Training Program in Computational and Applied Mathematics" proposal to the National Science Foundation (NSF) was ranked at the top of 35 mathematical sciences workforce proposals and funded at the level of $2 million over five years. UCLA applied math professor Andrea Bertozzi leads the program with fellow applied math faculty Stanley Osher, Luminita Vese and Joseph Teran to engage California math undergraduates and master's students in summer research on topics such as crime modeling, fluid dynamics experiments and modeling, robotics and control, medical imaging, cancer stem cells, bone growth, remote sensing applications, alcohol biosensors, photovoltaic cells, and algorithm design for microscopy. The program, which is a state-wide expansion of the department's successful applied math summer research program, involves cross-disciplinary collaboration with UCLA and partnering California university faculty in medicine, anthropology, engineering, chemistry, and other fields. The new award also includes a training program for postdocs and junior faculty to learn how to involve pre-PhD students in publication-level research, and supports training of some PhD students in both research and mentoring.